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Oil trains are unloaded at the Columbia Pacific Bio-Refinery in Port Westward, an industrial park near Clatskanie. It briefly accepted grain to be converted to ethanol but now ships oil to West Coast refineries.
(Rob Davis/The Oregonian)

Oregon’s top environmental regulator proposed a $117,292 fine Thursday for an oil train terminal near Clatskanie, saying it committed a serious violation of state law by moving far more crude oil than it was allowed.

The Oregon Department of Environmental Quality stopped short of requiring the operator, Massachusetts-based Global Partners LP, to halt oil trains through Portland and rural Columbia River communities until it has the right permit to run its facility.

The Columbia Pacific Bio-Refinery began operating as an ethanol fuel terminal, but went bankrupt in 2009. In June 2012, the DEQ quickly approved a routine permit change that allowed it to annually move 50 million gallons of crude oil instead of ethanol from trains onto barges, saying the shift had an incidental effect on the site’s air pollution.

The impact on nearby communities was far from incidental. It cleared the way for oil trains to move through Oregon without the public knowing they were coming. Without any debate, North Dakota crude oil began moving through Scappoose, St. Helens and Rainier in late 2012.

It’s the same type of oil involved in three high-profile explosions last year, including an accident that killed 47 people in Quebec. It sharply increased the amount of hazardous material moving through those rural communities and caught regulators flatfooted.

Though the state permitted the terminal to unload 50 million gallons annually, it moved 300 million gallons last year, far exceeding its permit. DEQ said the facility had committed the most serious violation of state environmental law by operating without the permit it needed.

Now, more than a year after oil trains began rolling to the terminal, the public will get a chance to weigh in, with a public hearing scheduled April 3 in Clatskanie. It’s unusual: The public can voice opinions about a project that already exists – not one that’s proposed.

Brett VandenHeuvel, executive director of Columbia Riverkeeper, said his environmental group would’ve mounted a significant campaign to alert the public and government officials about the oil terminal and its risks – if it had known about the project at the time.

“I find it deeply disturbing that DEQ knew about this, didn’t take action sooner and didn’t inform the public,” VandenHeuvel said. “To skirt that whole process is bad public policy and bad government.”

The terminal is now seeking an air pollution permit that would allow it to move 1.8 billion gallons of oil annually, enough to bring in 50 trains per month. That’s twice the number of trains it’s allowed to handle today. It can accept 24 trains a month and increase to 38 monthly if improvements are made to tracks running through downtown Rainier.